Death may be the final frontier when it comes to testing the limits of multicultural accommodation in Ontario.

Rigid provincial and municipal regulations regarding funerals and burials, created primarily to accommodate western Judeo-Christian customs, are forcing faith communities to adjust to the law rather than have the freedom to practise their final rites, according to a new study from Ryerson University.

Note - This writer is biased. Noticed how she wrote that "municipal regulations regarding funerals and burials, created primarily to accommodate western Judeo-Christian customs." Such a statement is just stupid. To accommodate something, something else must exist before it. Since Canada was founded on western Judeo-Christian customs our municipal regulations regarding funerals and burials are not accommodating anyone since Canada did not exist as a nation before the founding, settler people of Europe arrived. It is the customs of the founding peoples that was established in the land. Hindus and other non-Christian religions as well as other non-Europeans are not founding people. They are the ones seeking accommodation in a land they chose to come to after the fact. This Star writer wants the reader to think that our laws are bigoted since one group of people is being accommodated and another is not as though everyone arrived in Canada at the same time, Hindus and all. Judging by the Star writer's name I would say that she is Hindu herself and is using this story as a political tool to effect change in our laws to accommodate her and her religion.

Hindus, for example, face a problem with spreading of ashes after cremation. According to custom, ashes should be placed in a moving body of water, but conservation authorities say that's a potential hazard to ecosystems and isn't allowed.

"Everything is geared to the Christian tradition, but the rules are outdated. They have to change because the demographics have changed," says Pundit Roopnauth Sharma, of the Shri Ram Mandir temple in Mississauga.

Note - There was a problem with Hindus before with funerary rites. Residents downstream of the Credit River in Mississauga were finding packaged Hindu deity and flower petals washing ashore. It turned out Hindus were dumping the ashes of their deceased into the river along with other gifts that go along with the ceremony.

He has been talking with the province for three years to get clarity on where and how Hindus can dispose of cremated ashes. Meanwhile, his temple has an agreement with a small boat rental agency to ferry grieving parishioners out into Lake Ontario, where they can deposit their loved one's ashes.

For Muslims in the GTA, the customary ghusl (bathing) and shrouding of the deceased typically takes place in a mosque.

According to Muslim tradition, burial should take place within 24 hours of death. But that's not always possible because of cemetery rules, as well as bureaucratic and legal requirements, such as the need to obtain a death certificate or in some cases perform an autopsy – a practice prohibited under Islam.

Although Muslims make up about 10 per cent of the GTA's population, they have yet to establish their own cemetery because of prohibitive land costs, says Abdul Hai Patel, of the Islamic Council of Imams.

Prohibitive land costs? Where do they get the money to build all those mosques?

There is room to accommodate funeral rites but the depositing of ashes in Canadian rivers and streams is asking for too much. Our laws should not change and any Hindu caught breaking the law should be fined.

The Ganges River in India is the traditional and spiritual river where Hindus performed this task and ex-pat Hindu Indians would fly the ashes back there to perform this rite but this is costly. It seems Hindus are willing to break with tradition and perform funeral ceremonies locally to save a few bucks. I also suspect there is a political motive behind their desire to alter our burial laws to make Canada more Indian. This is Canada. This is not India. Asking to deposit the ashes of deceased loved ones into Canadian rivers and streams is not acceptable. You can always fly the ashes back to India. That's just part of the cost of moving to Canada. If you really respected this country then you would do it.

This is why Hindus in Canada support unfettered mass immigration. This allows a constant stream of Hindus into Canada thus swelling the population that already lives here. The larger number could effect political change to meet their Indo-centric demands. Canada: it was a lovely country we had once.

Calls for the dismissal of Bruce Allen from a key position on the 2010 Olympics ceremonies committee continued yesterday following a storm of controversy over the concert promoter's radio comments -- comments some have labelled as racist.

"He is a person who will have important influence in the opening and closing ceremonies and, judging from his comments, I don't think he will reflect Canadian values," said MLA Harry Bains, the NDP Olympics critic, last night.

Note - Harry Bains is an Indian Sikh with Canadian citizenship.

...

"He is not the right person to be representing Canadian values at our opening and closing ceremonies and if he has any influence we will be embarrassed."

Note - Bruce Allen is ten times the Canadian Harry Bains is or ever will be.

Allen, a veteran music-industry heavyweight and manager of a stable of Canadian music stars, including Michael Bublé and Bryan Adams, was introduced Thursday as one of 10 members on a creative team shaping the ceremonies and entertainment at the Vancouver and Whistler Olympic Games.

"There is the door. If you don't like the rules, hit it," said Allen. "We don't need you here. You have another place to go. It's called home. See ya."

Added Allen: "This is simple. We have laws in this country. They are spelled out and easy to get a hold of. If you're immigrating here and you don't like the rules in place, you have the right to choose not to live here. If you choose to come to Canada, shut up and fit in. We are a democracy, but it seems more and more that we are being pilloried by special interest groups that want special rules for themselves."

Indira Prahst, a sociology instructor at Langara College who specializes in race and ethnic relations, said she was "shocked" when she first heard Allen's comments.

She also said Allen's subsequent appearance on Christy Clark's CKNW show last week would have been an opportunity to show his remorse at the comments. "He could have apologized," she said. "I think the people representing the Olympics should be culturally sensitive. I think there should be some very serious consideration about his role with the Olympics."

Allen, in a lively exchange with Clark, was unrepentant over his comments. He called the controversy "a bunch of crap dredged up by some people who don't get it. I'm not hate-mongering. I'm an editorialist. I hate people playing the race card . . . I make people think. That's my job."

I would like to announce my membership to the Bruce Allen fan club. Just leave a comment that makes a similar announcement if you do too.

What does Bruce Allen have to apologize for? Immigrant groups, particularly Sikhs, have incessantly attacked our Canadian cultural identity for years. Sikhs have attacked the RCMP and the Royal Canadian Legion. They created Mr. Allen and people like me. I have never felt the need to comment on immigration and call for its reform until I began to witness the erasure of the cultural uniqueness of my people and country by immigrants groups who refuse to assimilate, opting instead to stamp their cultural identity onto the Canadian psyche, all the while calling themselves "Canadian". If any apologies should be made it should be by the Indo-Canadian community. Sikhs are responsible for the largest mass murder in Canadian history yet still no apology has come from them. I guess they're too busy building memorials to themselves to bother with that.

I encourage you to follow the link and read the comments while the link is still active. Most of the comments support Bruce Allen and so do I. I encourage more Canadians to speak out like Mr. Allen. We should let people know whose country this is. You want to live here then fine. But if you want to be a Sikh living in the Punjab then stay in the Punjab. Don’t come to my country and turn a portion of it into a Punjabi colony with health benefits.

Notice how the Indo-Canadian community immediately called Bruce Allen a racist. Notice how they want to punish him for expressing his views by seeking his removal from the Olympic committee. Harry Bains said that Allen "is not the right person to be representing Canadian values" yet isn't freedom of speech a Canadian value? Who then is not really representing Canadian values if Harry Bains wants to punish a fellow Canadian citizen for exercising his freedom of speech? What is wrong with expecting immigrants to preserve the cultural identity of their adoptive homeland? Immigrants know the importance of preserving their cultural identity and continuously make demands on Canadians to accommodate them (while calling us racists if we refuse). Why are Canadians racists when we make similar demands? Whose country is this anyways?

Monday, 22 October 2007

A white woman fired from the predominantly black women’s shelter where she worked because of alleged racist attitudes won more than $28,000 in severance pay today for wrongful dismissal.

In a strongly worded judgment, Ontario Superior Court Justice Gloria Klowak found no evidence of racist conduct, denounced the method of firing, and warned against allowing subjective feelings of hurt to colour good employment practices.

...

The case, believed to be one of the first litigations involving dismissal for anti-black racist conduct, involved Karen Butler-Lynch, 49, who was fired Sept. 1, 2006, from a busy, publicly funded women’s shelter in Toronto called Dr. Roz’s Healing Place.

Butler-Lynch, who is white, had worked there for more than six years. Almost all employees and clients were people of colour.

Problems with her superiors arose out of issues such as staff schedules and the treatment of shelter residents, and Butler-Lynch found herself accused of insubordination.

During a mediation session last August, the shelter’s executive director, Roz Roach, apparently said Butler-Lynch could never know what it was like to be a black woman.

Butler-Lynch allegedly responded by saying it was ``challenging” to be a white woman working almost exclusively with people of colour.

``I’m a white woman with blue eyes and freckles, and I used to have blond hair,” Butler-Lynch allegedly said. “Do you know what a challenge it is to work with all these women of colour?”

Roach and the others concluded the comments were oppressive and evidence of a deep-seated racist attitude.

As a result, the shelter fired Butler-Lynch. The termination notice was sent to an address she hadn’t lived at for three years, then given to her at work by a taxi driver on the Friday of the Labour Day long weekend.

Or so says Alidad Mafinezam in a piece in the Toronto Star but he doesn't call it a social experiment. Canada is more of a "think-tank for the world." Whatever they call it our nation is not really Canada and Canadians do not exist.

Our diversity makes us a think-tank for the world

Oct 22, 2007 04:30 AM

Alidad Mafinezam

The Quebec hearings on the Reasonable Accommodation of Minorities, chaired by distinguished scholars Charles Taylor and Gerard Bouchard, have necessitated similar discussions of the challenges and opportunities of diversity in Canada's other provinces.

Yet in Quebec and elsewhere, a key aspect of Canada's diversity has gone largely unnoticed: the opportunity afforded to Canada in the international arena by its multiculturalism and diversity.

Diversity can no longer be seen as limited to domestic affairs, as it now shapes, more than ever before, Canada's international relations. Diasporas and "transnational communities," the human bridges and bonds between Canada and dozens of countries, are the new themes we need to focus on.

In the past generation, almost all discussions of diversity and multiculturalism in Canada have focused on the domestic implications of the pluralistic makeup of our society, and the need for promoting mutual respect and tolerance.

While the importance of this line of thinking is indisputable, it misses the idea that Canada's success at integrating its diversity has effectively transformed the country into the global crossroads. Thus, Canada can and should serve as a global think-tank focused on finding solutions to some of the world's most intractable problems: ethnic and religious strife, urban poverty and pollution.

I don't recall Canadians ever being consulted on this. Has anybody ever asked Canadians that they should surrender their culture, identity, languages, history, and country to become a "think tank for the world"?

Why are Canadians being asked, hell forced even, to let their country to become something no one else in the world would allow? How many immigrants to this country would agree to let their home countries endure what Canadians are being asked to do? I doubt many would.

This commentary, and others of its ilk, is effectively saying that Canadians do not really exist at all. We are all guinea pigs in some elitists’ social experiment designed to satisfy their utopian ideals of the “just society” and to convince them that such ideals are feasible.

Sorry pal but this is Canada. You want a “think tank of the world” then I suggest you make one in your ancestral home land and make guinea pigs of them. You prefer others to bear the burden of your experiments? Then how about Yugoslavia? Oops, forgot about that. That country doesn’t exist. I wonder why?

Bogus "nannies" are among many fraudsters seeking entry into Canada through a $25-million immigration office in India that was opened in 2004 for political reasons, according to newly released internal documents.

"Fraud is omnipresent in [the Indian town of ] Chandigarh and is found in every sort of document, Indian and Canadian," according to the Canadian diplomatic mission's 2006-07 annual report obtained by Vancouver lawyer Richard Kurland.

...

The applicants include an unusual and suspicious number of prospective "live-in caregivers," according to the report.

"This office has identified over 160 'nanny schools' in the Punjab. While some of these schools are bona fide schools, there are a considerable number lacking facilities, equipment and students -- but having large graduating classes," the report told senior officials at Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

"Many of the applicants are male -- in a society where childcare and eldercare is seen as the sphere of women."

Mr. Kurland said the documents prove bureaucrats were correct and the politicians, anxious to reward Punjabi-Canadian Liberal supporters clamouring for better immigration services, were wrong to open the mission.

With a backlog of more than 2,000 applicants -- most saying they plan to work as nannies for relatives in Canada -- the processing time is estimated at up to 30 months.

...

Canada has the only diplomatic mission in the city, so there are no suitable schools for children, and few opportunities to socialize.

Canadian visa officers "are readily recognizable as foreigners and offers of friendship often lead to visa requests."

The report acknowledges the high political profile of the mission, which was opened over the objections of senior Canadian bureaucrats because of pressure from Indo-Canadian community activists.

"The Chandigarh visa office ? holds a high profile in the large and politically active Punjabi community in Canada."

The report also said there is evidence of "second-level fraud" now being investigated in Canada.

...

In 2004, Raj Chahal, a former senior advisor to former prime minister Jean Chretien, told The Vancouver Sun that the office was opened over the objections of both Citizenship and Immigration Canada and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

"It was a political decision," Mr. Chahal said, adding that bureaucrats felt scarce resources should have been used to open visa offices in higher-priority areas elsewhere in India and other key Asian countries.

Internal documents revealed the mission would cost $25-million over five years.

Run up forecast to slow, but ReMax still expects 5% rise in Toronto area

Oct 18, 2007 04:30 AM Tony Wong Business Reporter

Despite concerns over the soaring loonie and its impact on the fragile manufacturing industry, prices for the average home in the Toronto area are forecast to increase by 5 per cent in 2008.

The average price of a home is expected to creep closer to $400,000 at $390,600 by the end of next year, according to a report released yesterday by ReMax Ontario-Atlantic Canada in its annual housing outlook report.

..

ReMax is also forecasting that average home prices by the end of this year will be up by 6 per cent to $372,000.

...

While Toronto will do well, the Hamilton-Burlington market is expected to outperform in 2008 with a gain of 8 per cent in average home prices, according to ReMax.

This is great news if you are a homeowner looking to sell but it is bad news if you are looking to buy. Who is pushing this demand? Of course there is some domestic pressures pushing up housing prices but mass immigration is amplifying it. This is why property developers are part of the pro-mass immigration lobby. This is also why urban sprawl is out of control. Get a better job you say? Easier said than done but you'll need a handsome household income if you want to be able to bid on housing in Toronto.

Apartment real-estate investment trusts are expecting solid revenues for the rest of the year as high home prices and financing difficulties keep unit vacancies at all-time lows and allow landlords to raise prices.

"We've been in this business for 10 years and we have never seen as few vacancies as we are seeing now," said Michael Newman, chief executive of InterRent REIT.

"A lot of it does have to do with affordability of housing and people just not feeling comfortable making an investment when the economy seems to be somewhat unbalanced."

...

Some would-be home buyers are also finding it more difficult to get financing and carry a mortgage, as the so-called "credit crunch" is leading to higher mortgage rates for some buyers, as well as less availability for those deemed risky.

...

Both REITs say they also been able to raise unit prices on turnover at higher rates than they would have in the past.

There are several factors that contribute to high housing and rental prices. Mass immigration is one of them and we can influence that. We should demand a dramatic decrease in the number of immigrants this country receives because it is hurting the most vulnerable of Canadians. A considerable portion of subsidized housing in Toronto has gone to immigrants. If you don't believe me then go to any subsidized apartment building at random and look at the directory of names. The next time CityTV or CTV news does a story on habitat for humanity just look and see who the new tenants are. Why do we allow this to happen when there are many Canadians who could use the assistance? Why do we allow Canada's immigration policy to continuously hurt low income Canadians and postpone the home owning dreams of many Canadians? Whose country is this after all? When the decisions of others affect your quality of life it is your responsibility to speak out.

Monday, 15 October 2007

Cut-off looms for workers in Gulf states who have Canadian landed status but don't actually live here

Oct 14, 2007 04:30 AMNicholas KeungImmigration/Diversity Reporter

As the first of Canada's new Permanent Resident cards hit their expiry date, immigrants who haven't spent the required length of time in Canada – 730 days out of five years – face losing their landed status in the next few months.

The looming cut-off means hundreds, perhaps thousands, of "phantom" residents – some of whom settled their families here and then went back to well-paying jobs in China, India or the Middle East's Gulf states – will be out of luck.

A large number of them came through a single Canadian visa office: Abu Dhabi.

A government internal report estimates that a whopping 98 per cent of "permanent residents" processed in Abu Dhabi, which serves the Gulf region, had no intention of remaining in Canada after their initial landing.

...

"Unless something major happens in the region to make the Gulf less attractive for expat workers, there is not a pool of professionals who are serious about settling in Canada," notes the mission's annual overview, obtained under the access to information process.

"The high application rate is related to what Canada can do for them, not the other way around."

...

The PR card situation mirrors the phenomenon of Hong Kong parents who deposited their children in Canada during the anxious run-up to China's 1997 takeover.

"They are basically using the PR status as an insurance passport without living in Canada, so their kids can be exempted from foreign-student tuition fees and their spouses (in Canada) can get the GST credits."

...

According to the government report, Canadian resident status is especially attractive to South Asian expatriates who don't want to return to the developing world after living in the Gulf countries, where they can get work permits but find it almost impossible to obtain citizenship. (Typically, residence of 30 years is required even to apply.)

However, many, already working in middle-management jobs, are turned off by poor job prospects in Canada, where employers demand Canadian experience and hard-to-get credentials. Plus, they pay no income tax in the Gulf states.

To make things worse, immigration consultants abroad lure clients with promises of settlement assistance and help obtaining drivers' licences, social insurance, health and bank cards – with only a minimal absence from their Gulf jobs. "Many immigrants took permanent residence as a means to obtain a subsidized university education for their children while the parents remained abroad, an opportunity for a better passport, a place to go if they cannot stay in the Gulf at retirement, or war breaks out," the annual report says. "All this may become a bigger issue for Canada if thousands of Canadians working in the Gulf, many of whom either stayed in Canada the minimum time possible, if at all, decide to return to Canada in their later years to utilize social programs."

Angry? I hope so because I sure am. It is because of this kind of behaviour from today's immigrants, this shameful opportunism, is why I want reform. Canada is not getting the quality immigrant this country deserves. We are getting planeloads of opportunists. We are getting immigrants who want to use Canada to compliment the “better life” they are already living. Canadian citizenship is just another acquisition and probably the best deal on the international citizenship markets. We demand less from our immigrants than any other western nation while we shower them with more benefits than anywhere else. They want to exploit Canada’s social system while contributing little to it. They dump the kids and aged parents here and then go pay taxes in another country. How’s that for loyalty? If this is the immigrants we are attracting today then we don’t need them here.

We need to change our citizenship laws. We need to make stricter citizenship requirements. We need to reduce Canada’s immigration intake. We need to pressure our politicians because we need reform.

The tone and purpose of this editorial is Orwellian, littered with the usual slogans and words used in multicult speak as devices to indoctrinate the reader. The following paragraphs serves as an example:

Clearly, all of Canada continues to struggle through multiculturalism issues and to define what it means to be a Canadian. Few countries have opened their doors to such a wide cross-section of immigrants as Canada and no city has embraced it more than Toronto.

We can be proud of our diversity, of our willingness to embrace a wide range of cultural and religious differences. Yet many of our recent newcomers still face bigotry, racism and job discrimination.

If we dissect these two paragraphs we can see the propaganda machine at work.

Clearly, all of Canada continues to struggle through multiculturalism issues and to define what it means to be a Canadian.

This sentence is used to mask what is actually an attack on Canadian culture to appear as a challenge, a struggle, and a difficult but necessary process to understanding ourselves as Canadians because apparently the people we thought we were is wrong. The reality is the Toronto Star is wrong. All of Canada does not struggle through multiculturalism issues. There are many places and people in this country who understand quite well what it means to be a Canadian. Multiculturalism brings confusion and struggle because it demands that Canadians are not the people they think they are forcing us to redefine ourselves again, and again, and again to meet someone else's satisfaction. This redefining process erases the Canadian identity piece by piece until there is nothing left that defines what a Canadian is outside the legal right to hold a passport. This is true multiculturalism and the Canadian cannot exist within it.

Few countries have opened their doors to such a wide cross-section of immigrants as Canada and no city has embraced it more than Toronto.

This is typical ego stroking and it is a common trope in all pro multicultural arguments. By saying "few countries" this editorial wants us to believe that we are special and better than everyone else when it is quite possible that we haven't learned from other countries mistakes. This is to soften the resolve of the reader and render him or her more susceptible to the utopian message of multiculturalism.

You will also find the word "embrace" in all pro multiculturalism pieces. The reality is that Toronto hasn't so much as embraced multiculturalism but has had multiculturalism forced upon it. If you are stuck in Toronto then you have no choice but to "embrace" it as you go to sleep in Toronto and wake up the next morning in Mumbai. To get a clearer understanding of how well Toronto has "embraced" multiculturalism one needs to look at settlement patterns in the city. If Toronto has truly "embraced" multiculturalism then why do settlement patterns show that Toronto and GTA (Greater Toronto Area) residents prefer to live among their own people? Why are there so many ethnic enclaves, around 230 according to StatsCan, in the city? Why are so many whites leaving the city and moving to places like Barrie and Milton, adding to the population explosions in those towns, when Toronto, and by implication Canadians, has "embraced" multiculturalism?

We can be proud of our diversity, of our willingness to embrace a wide range of cultural and religious differences.

This sentence is another trope of pro multicultural pieces. It is tantamount to battle cries employed to rally up the troops and national anthems to stir up nationalist feelings. It appeals to the emotions more so than to the intellect. The "we" the Star editors are referring to are the Canadians who continue to suffer at the hand multicultural nonsense by having to surrender their identities out of fear for offending someone. It is the attitudes of Canadians that need to be softened because it is their identity that is being attacked and are thus pose a threat to the multicultural ideals of the Star editors.

Yet many of our recent newcomers still face bigotry, racism and job discrimination.

This is based largely on anecdotal evidence. There is no hard proof that immigrants are being discriminated against in the job market. If they feel that they are it is because there are no jobs for them here. Their importation was all part of the numbers game that Canada's immigration policy has become. The Star et al. choose to distract us from this fact because if we understood that Canada is importing more immigrants than the job market can bare than we may want to decrease the numbers and the Star can't have that. Also, newcomers may face bigotry and racism but they also employ bigotry and racism towards Canadians. The Star just reinforces the culture of victim hood that many minority groups and immigrants use in this country to their advantage.

The Toronto Star is concerned with multiculturalism because it is mass immigration from non traditional countries that is fueling the policy. The Star is fearful that a backlash against multiculturalism will result in demands for a saner immigration system with more manageable numbers. The Star does not want this because the paper owes much of the increase of its reader base to immigrants primarily those from China and India, Canada’s top two source countries for immigrants. The more readers a paper has the more it can charge advertisers for space. It’s about money. However if Canada began to import immigrant journalists en masse that either threatened the salaries of the Toronto Star journalists and editors, accused them of discrimination because the paper cannot accommodate the surplus of journalists, or competing ethnically specific papers steal away enough of the Star’s readers that it hurts profit margins then I’m sure the Star’s editorial Staff will change it’s tune. But right now the Toronto Star has a very Toronto attitude towards the rest of Canada: if it doesn’t bother me then let it be even if it hurts everyone else. And if I like then you’ll like it too whether you like it or not and if you don’t like it, well, that’s because you’re some dumb, inbred, ignorant, back water, bumbkin living north of Steeles Avenue. Gotta love Toronto.

In the first eight months of this year, foreigners gobbled up Canadian companies worth an astounding $90 billion. Canadian companies such as Inco, Dofasco and Alcan that formed part of the industrial backbone of the Canadian economy are Canadian no more.

The losses in steel, mining and other areas where Canadian companies were recognized world leaders mean that decisions affecting Canada on key issues such as investments, workforces, strategies for market expansion and environmental protection are now being made in Europe, the United States and even in India and Brazil.

...

That's tragic because if Canada is allowed to become an industrial colony for other nations, it will lose control over its destiny and fail to reap the benefits that come with economic self-determination.

...

Aside from foreign state-owned enterprises and issues of national security, which Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said Friday would be dealt with in a matter of months, Prentice made it clear in his Vancouver speech that the federal government favours the status quo on foreign investment.

That is another way of saying Harper won't stand in the way of the kind of takeovers that have been hollowing out the Canadian economy and turning this country into a colonial outpost for countries and companies that understand that ownership provides unfettered control.

Canadians cannot expect to keep up with the pack in the prosperity race if they have to take their orders from the competition.

If we take the language of this editorail and apply it to Canada's immigration policy we see that it is the same thing. How is our immigration policy not turning Canada into a nation of colonies? How are ethnic enclaves (areas where a particular ethnic group is 30% of the population of more) not foreign take overs of Canada's public spaces? Why is the surrendering of Canada's economy to foreigners a bad thing when the surrendering of Canada's culture landscape to foreigners via multiculturalism a good thing?

This solution to this is quite simple. Just give these foreign corporations Canadian citizenship then all's well. After all, a Canadian is a Canadian, or so we're told.

VAUGHAN -Before dawn in this sprawl north of Toronto, McDonald's is locked and Tim Hortons is empty. The fake mountain of Canada's Wonderland, the amusement park, peeks from the gloom. Across the street looms the white minaret of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama'at mosque.

Note - Ahmadi or Ahmadiyya in Urdu is a sect of Islam. Basically they believe that a prophet after Mohammed walked the earth. This is considered heretical by most Muslims since it is believed that Mohammed was the last prophet with none to follow. This is why the Ahmadi are not considered Muslims by many of their fellow Islamic believers. Ahmadiyya, as opposed to Ahmadi, tips us off that the majority of the residents in the exclusive Islamic neighbourhood in Vaughn are Pakistani immigrants since Urdu is the primary dialect of Pakistan. This makes sense when we consider that Pakistan is one of Canada's top immigrant producing countries.

Welcome to Peace Village, Canada's first Islamic subdivision, where all 260 homes belong to members the Ahmadiyya sect, who flooded to Canada in the 1980s after persecution in Pakistan. It looks ordinary, with basketball nets and minivans in the driveways, until you notice the street signs: Mahmood Crescent, Ahmadiyya Avenue and Noor-Ud-Din Court.

"There is nothing like this in North America," boasts Naseer Ahmad, a real estate agent from Pakistan who dreamed up this community of Islamic dream homes (including oak stairs and central air conditioning) on the edge of Toronto. "You have a mosque, and people are walking to enjoy their faith."

The houses, with some modifications, such as increased ventilation (for spicy food) and separate living rooms for women and men, are so successful that, six years after Peace Village opened, Mr. Ahmad plans to double the mosque's size and is now selling 55 townhomes, 1,700 square feet each, for around $350,000 with a garage and a yard, as "Peace Village Phase II."

Settlers have gathered around churches since Europeans first came to Canada. Newer immigrants took over downtowns vacated by earlier ethnicities, giving Montreal a Chinatown and Toronto a Little Portugal. This is different: it is a new development for one ethnic group.

To the dismay of some locals, a demolition crew last year took down a United Church next to where Peace Village is growing. The changes have inspired Christians to reassert themselves: Across the highway, Italian-Canadians built "Vellore Woods" with a large Catholic church at its centre, mimicking Peace Village.

Note - Is there a more apt image of the decline of Western civilization, of which Canada is apart of, than the demolition of a Christian church to accommodate an encroaching Muslim populace? But then again maybe the cultural aggressiveness of Muslims may be what we in the West need to rediscover our Christian heritage. I know, I know, it is wishful thinking.

The Ahmadiyya plan a similar faith-based suburb near a mosque they are building in Calgary.

The Ahmadiyya say they don't mean to isolate themselves, and they send their children to public school. Still, the nation's "cultural mosaic" is fairly monochrome in this spot: Teston Road Public School, which opened last month next to the mosque, is about 80% Muslim, and the school provides its gym on Fridays at lunchtime so the kids can kick off their running shoes, bow low toward Mecca and pray.

"Even though they are born in Canada," says Teston Road's principal, David Nimmo, "their first language is Urdu."

...

Although Muslims bought all the houses, he insists he does not sell only to adherents of Islam. "There is no exclusion here," he says. "You come and buy the house, no problem. You want to live beside the mosque, you want to live in a predominantly Muslim community, no problem at all."

Note - Who's he kidding? He knows no one is going to move there. That's why he says "there is no exclusion here" because he can get away with it. But we know that such an ethnically exclusive neighbourhood has a tendency to drive away and keep away those who do not share the same ethnicity. In fact he contradicts himself. What has he gained if he builds a neighbourhood with a centralized mosque but only, say, Hindus move into all the houses? He foils his own dreams for this community. He has managed to build for himself an Ahmadiyya colony in Canada with plans to build similar colonies across the nation and he is quite proud of it.

"Over here is going to be a TV station," he says. (Already a special cable to each home feeds Muslim television from an audio-visual room at the base of the minaret). "Then over here we're going to have a big huge guest house."

In his office, Mr. Ahmad points to other projects: "This is my Brampton mosque. This is in Cornwall. I have architects and engineers working for me freelance. This is the Calgary mosque."

...

The children's lack of English is a hurdle. "Our academic scores are low in these schools," Mr. Nimmo says, leading a tour of his shiny school, filled with children. He is helping to change that.

Two years ago, he called a meeting at the mosque. "I wanted to tell them how poorly their children were doing." When he got there, he found only a handful of parents.

"I was very discouraged, so I asked Naseer Ahmad, he got on the phone and within 20 minutes there were 300 people there. That's how organized they were." Now, he says, "they've rallied around us," and grades are going up."

Note - First generation Canadians being raised in Canada withouth a fluent knowledge of French or English is more common than we care to admit. This is a major problem with this type of neighbourhood. Those who live there can associate, work, and go to school in the native tongues of their home countries. This does not help them to integrate and become Canadians.

The appeal of faith-based suburbs is simple: People feel more comfortable among their own kind. Maqbool Bajwa immigrated to Toronto from Pakistan in 1987 with his four brothers, his mother and father. Immigration Canada let in his father under the business investor category. The family's first home was in Toronto's troubled Jane-Finch area. In 1997, Maqbool Bajwa bought a house in Brampton in Toronto's western suburbs. A year later he sold it and bought in Peace Village. Family bought adjoining houses.

"The mosque was nearby, the street names were all from our community," he says, sitting in an office at MB Computer Depot, a new store his brothers started in an Ahmadiyyaowned plaza near Peace Village. "I love it. When I see Ahmadiyya Avenue, it makes me proud, no question about it. Plus we've got the Vaughan Mills [a new mall], we've got the Wonderland and hopefully the subway coming. I can wear my shalwar camise and walk from home to the mosque without someone looking at me funny for what I'm wearing. It just gives me the absolute comfort of being home."

Just remember that when white Canadians behave the same way they are called racists.

This does not encourage integration. It intentionally discourages it. That parcel of land in Vaughn no longer reflects Canada. It is an Ahmadiyya colony built to reflect the cultural life of a foreign country. And there are hopes to repeat this pattern across the nation. I find it offensive really. It tells me that those who live there do not really want to live in Canada with Canadians or partake of Canadian culture, to say nothing of preserving it. They only want the good life Canada can offer. Canadians can keep the rest. This community/colony is symptomatic of the failures of the multiculture social model.

We should expect this kind of behaviour though. Ethnic groups in Canada have been doing it for years with little deference to Canadian identity. How is "Peace Village" any different from the clustering of Chinese in Markham, the Italians in Woodbridge, South Asians in Brampton, the Jews in Thornhill? Nothing really it's just that the Ahmadiyya are being honest about it.

This is why Canada's immigration system needs to be reformed and official multiculturalism abolished. It does not serve the interests of the mass of Canadians. I am bothered to see my country parceled away piece by piece to better reflect foreign countries. This is not India, or China, or Italy, or Portugal, or anywhere. This is Canada and there is only one Canada. When it is gone it is gone for good. Why should we surrender it so others may preserve their culture here; a culture that is alive and well back in their homelands?

PARIS -The Quebec Council on the Status of Women, which advises the provincial government on women's issues, wants the province to prohibit civil servants and teachers from wearing visible religious signs at work -- a suggestion aimed directly at the hijab, as well as the total face covering veil known as the niqab, worn by some Muslim women. Alia Hogben, executive director of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women, was appalled. Earlier this week, she declared: "I don't know why they keep going after Muslim women ? If you go to the argument that a woman has the right to dress as she chooses, a state should not be telling people how to dress."

Note - She's actually right. If we Canadians truly accepted multiculturalism (we really don’t actually, it is a policy forced upon us by our intellectual and social betters) then the hijab and the niqab wouldn't be an issue but apparently it is. It appears some groups, some that we may consider "progressive" in the liberal sense of the word, are opposed to Muslim women wearing such a dress. They claim it subjugates women to a secondary status and therefore feminists and other lefty types need to liberate them which I guess means having them show more skin then just their faces. But what right do they have to do that if multiculturalism is official policy? They have no right. As much as the left has a problem in acknowledging that they are not the only ones in the world with rights these Muslim woman can wear these types of clothing if they so choose. This is just another example of the hypocrisy of the Canadian left.

Marta Lopez's family immigrated to Paris from Spain years ago and built a new life in the French capital. She is an activist for a Paris-based feminist organization called Neither Whores Nor Submissives (Ni Putes Ni Soumises) -- a group that was inspired by the murder of a 19-year-old Muslim woman in a Paris suburb because she dressed in a way that Muslim men found offensive. Ms. Lopez is part of the face of the new feminism in France, one that embraces the idea that immigrant women are hurt by policies that pander to see-no-evil notions of multiculturalism.

When asked about the hijab and niqab, Ms. Lopez argues that banning them is not the issue.

"The problem is why are the women wearing a veil? The fact that they have to wear the veil to be respected by the [Muslim] community is the problem."

Her view is widespread. At the Ligue Internationale Contre le Racisme et l'Antisemitisme (known commonly as LICRA), a prominent French anti-racism organization, an activist tells me that opposing the hijab in schools is not racist: Immigrants have an obligation to integrate into French society.

How to integrate immigrants is a question to which Daniel Sibony has given much thought. An acclaimed French author and academic, Professor Sibony has little good to say about multiculturalism. He told me in his book-laden Paris flat that the doctrine is dishonest, promoting a view of the world that pretends all cultures are equally valid. There is nothing wrong with a host society making clear what its limits are; indeed to do less, says the Moroccan-born author, shows a lack of respect for immigrants.

Opposition to Muslim women wearing a hijab or niqab is a statement that there are limits to multiculturalism. Incidentally much of it, if not most of it, is coming from the left; the main pool for multicultural cheer leading and mass immigration. It appears some in Canada want multiculturalism so long as it is on their terms and in doing so they exercise a type of selective tolerance. When it comes to the hijab and nigab these people are intolerant and so, since the left is a bastion of tolerance they mask this expression of intolerance in altruistic jargon: it's about equality, civility, freedom, blah, blah, blah.

Instead of setting limits to multiculturalism Canada should abandon it outright. It discourages integration; it argues that Canadians do not exist as a people; it is an enemy to a unique Canadian identity, an identity is wishes to eliminate. Canadians need to express their cultural uniqueness and not apologize for it. If some groups have a problem with that well no one forced you to come to this country. And you can always leave.

This is also raises the question of the benefits of Muslim immigration to Canada. Why do we encourage the immigration of a people who have shown that full integration into Canadian society is a problem and have shown that full integration is not a desired goal? This creates social tensions exacerbated by a chain of demands for cultural adaptations benefitting Muslims. Islamic culture is incompatible with Canadian society. It makes integration difficult by compelling Muslims to isolate themselves. Why do Muslims immigrate to predominately white Christian countries like Canada in the first place only to isolate themselves socially? How is Canada a better country and how are Canadians benefiting if immigrants are altering the cultural and geographic landscape to better reflect their cultural and religious homelands? Do Canadians even want this? If not then why do we allow it?

Wednesday, 10 October 2007

Belgium doesn't exactly rate as one of the world's most troubled countries.

…

As nation-states go, though, Belgium does have one considerable handicap: it doesn't exist. It's still there on the map, all right, filling up the same, rough oblong that it has since 1830. It has an impressive capital – Brussels – which is also the capital of the European Union.

But all of that is fiction. In fact, Belgium is a "Potemkin village" of a nation-state, a pretend one. What actually exists is two nation-states – French-speaking Walloonia and Dutch-speaking (technically, Flemish-speaking) Flanders. There's also a small German-speaking minority.

On this topic, Dewinter is a suspect witness. He's the leader of the ultra-nationalist Flemish party, Vlaams Belang. This time, though, Dewinter is right. No one can come up with a list of things in Belgium that are actually Belgian other than beer, the national soccer team and the king, 73-year-old Albert II.

Moreover, Belgium's Belgian-ness keeps diminishing. A poll last month found that 66 per cent of Flemings regard separation as inevitable. Since elections last June, the country has had no national government because the 11 ethnic and regional parties cannot agree on anything. It's almost certain that Belgium will vanish from the map sooner or later.

Sound familiar? That’s because we as Canadians have heard this before. We have been told, oftentimes by immigrants themselves, that Canada and Canadians have no cultural identity yet I can think of more things that are uniquely Canadian than the Belgians can think of as Belgian. When I think of Canada I think of hockey, maple syrup, canoes, the Mounties, the Group of Seven, a vast and diverse natural landscape, and the stereotypical use of the word “eh” of which I am guilty. And yes, even snow. Because it snows here, and for too long I might add, we have to modify our behaviour to adapt to it and therefore our actions help define us. If this sounds silly then try to think of other countries where the weather is one of the first things that come to your mind. If you find yourself listing all tropical countries remember you only think of those countries in the dead of January. We have truly accomplished a lot considering the modest size of our population and relatively short history. How many other countries can say that they have developed a sport that is uniquely their own and played internationally?

The things I listed just off the top of my head are typically what most people in the world think of when they imagine Canada. They don’t think of turbans and saris or kirpans, curry, bangra music, or Bollywood films. They don’t think of hijabs and mosques, soccer or pasta, stone temples and Shiva, or Latino music and tea in the afternoon. The reason is simple: those are not defining characteristics of Canada. To be blunt, they are not Canadian. However there are some here who want to change that. They want to make turbans, reggae music, saris, and hijabs as Canadian as maple syrup and hockey and multiculturalism and mass immigration are the tools being employed to achieve that.

What they argue then is that the Canadian doesn’t really exist. To acknowledge the existence of a Canadian is to acknowledge that a uniquely Canadian identity exists. Therefore there are people who are Canadian and people who are not even though they all reside within Canada. This runs counter to a multicultural social model that says everyone is Canadian no matter how you dress or act. But if a Canadian identity does exist then those who do not fit within it will not be seen as Canadian. Therefore the Canadian identity must be erased or unacknowledged to favour a multicultural one. In a multicultural model the Canadian does not exist. Everyone is reduced to the sum of their ancestry. No one is ever really a Canadian. We are a nation of immigrants after all.

Canada is to become like Belgium: a multiethnic state that has difficulty defining itself because its multiethnic character prevents itself from doing so. Canada already has regional and ethnic divisions (by which I mean the French and English divide as well as the First Nations people). This will be exacerbated by mass immigration as ethnic minority groups start to constitute the majority in parts of Canada. As they do so they will organize ethnically specific political parties to press their demands on the rest of the nation. That is if they have not co-opted Canada’s existing political parties to meet their demands. If you find this preposterous then I hope you realize that an ethnically specific Chinese political party was launched this year in B.C. Called the Nation Alliance Party it hopes to run candidates at the Federal and Provincial levels across Canada. Is a Canadian Islamic party unforeseeable? How about a Sikh one? One Bloc Quebecois is one too many. In some electoral ridings you either vote with the large ethnic community or you don’t vote at all. Some riding associations are dominated by one ethnic group who nominate and elect members from their own ethnic communities to represent the riding.

Canada’s current immigration policy and the officially sanctioned multicultural social model will doom Canada to become like Belgium of today complete with competing ethnic divisions (not just French and English), a confused national character, and a populace where 66% believe separation along ethnic lines is inevitable. Is Canada to be carved up along English, French, Chinese, and South Asian lines? I love my country to much to sit back and let that happen. That’s why I started this blog.

Such are the challenges of campaigning in Etobicoke North, one of the most diverse ridings in the province.

More than half of its residents are members of visible minorities; one in 10 is a recent immigrant.

Etobicoke North is home to more blacks than any other riding (18.6% of its population, or more than 20,000 people), and has among the highest proportions of Hindu and Muslim residents in Ontario.

The riding also has one of the lowest voter turnout rates in the province. One in four residents is a low-income earner; only 13% have high school diplomas. Gang violence and shootings are a persistent problem.

With a history of swinging every which way politically, pundits say the riding's future is a toss-up. For the first time in Ontario, the candidates representing the four major parties are all Muslims. All four men, none of whom was born in Canada, have been campaigning throughout Ramadan on empty stomachs.

I wonder what percentage of the members of each riding association is Muslim. If my suspicions are correct then Muslims form a significant number if not the majority of the members even though Muslims are not the majority of the residents in the riding.

The future of Canada folks: ethnic politics Canadian style. It was a lovely country we had once. But since we so easily gave it away do we even deserve it in the first place?

TORONTO -- Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory's proposal to fund faith-based schools has inflicted enormous damage on his party, leaving it trailing 15 points behind the Liberals on the eve of tomorrow's election, according to a new poll.

Only 27 per cent of voters support the Conservatives, making it all but certain that Dalton McGuinty's Liberals, at 42 per cent, will win a second majority, says the Strategic Counsel survey conducted for The Globe and Mail and CTV.

The Liberal lead is not due to a growth in their popularity, but because support for the Conservatives has fallen to near historic lows. The survey says the biggest beneficiaries are the province's second-tier parties - the New Democrats and Greens - that are attracting the "protest vote," mainly outside the Toronto area.

"As Ontarians became more engaged in the election, they clearly turned away from the PCs," said Tim Woolstencroft, managing partner at the Strategic Counsel. "The issue of education and religion has totally exploded and been devastating to the PC campaign."

You can't blame John Tory. He just took a page out of the Liberal play book by pandering to the ethnic vote and it back fired on him. Let's face it, it was religious minorities, largely Muslims, and not Christian faiths that continuously pushed for public subsidization of their private faith based schools. I don't agree with public funding for the Catholic school system but before Muslims started to demand extension of public dollars to their private faith based schools it wasn't much of an issue in Ontario. Christians and other faiths just jumped onto the momentum the Muslims started. And now, not only are private faith based schools not going to get what this time around but now the people of Ontario are talking about absolving the Catholic school system altogether.

The debate on publicly funding faith based schools in Ontario provided Canadians a rare opportunity to voice their opinion on one aspect of a multicultural society and the rejection was almost unanimous. Some may think it was solely about religion and the maintenance of a secular society but the more astute observer would see that Ontarians were rejecting the multicultural societal model. This is quite remarkable considering that Ontarians, mostly southern Ontarians, are the Canadians most indoctrinated by the Canadian government's multicultural program.

I'm glad Ontarians rejected publicly funding faith based schools. There may be hope for Canada yet.

Any wonders why Canada suffers from a doctor shortage. It is a problem our immigration system helped create. We imported, and continue to import, more people than this country needs without a corresponding increase in medical care professionals. If you think the answer is as simple as allowing foreign trained professionals the opportunity to practice you might want to reconsider that one. The following is from a weekly bulletin found at immigrationwatchcanada.org.

Foreign doctors are not the answerNational PostSaturday, February 19, 2005Letter To The Editor

Re: Many Foreign Physicians Not Making the Cut, Feb. 18, 2005.

I sit on the post-graduate anesthesia committee at the University of Toronto, which has been assessing foreign-trained "anesthetists" for the past three years. We have assessed 10 so far, and only one was deemed fit to practice in Ontario. The other nine required at least another two years of training in a Canadian anesthesia residency program in order to be up to our standard of anesthesia care.

It might be tempting to "fast track" foreign-trained MDs into clinical service, but at what cost? How much is one life worth when a foreign-trained anesthetist is quickly given a licence to practice and then kills a patient under anesthesia? Is one life worth it to get political brownie points for solving the MD shortage?

Henderson Lee, assistant professor, University of Toronto, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Anesthesia, Toronto East General Hospital

If Canada reduces its immigration intake, restricts family class immigrants to the nuclear family only as well as build more medical schools to train Canadian doctors instead of poaching the greedy ones from the developing world we can reverse the doctor shortage trend. Canada's health care system is one area that has been adversely affected by mass immigration and by doing so it has negatively affected the quality of life for many Canadians. Why do we allow it to continue? We need to speak up. The health of our nation depends on it. And how dare anyone call us racists for doing so.

If reading the Toronto Star encourages comments like the following one then maybe it's time to change papers. You're intellect is at stake.

Protecting fish doesn't require beating anglers

Oct 08, 2007 04:30 AM

Anglers claim racism

Oct. 4

It is appalling that Westport residents are attempting to justify what is clearly blatant and inexcusable racism. If they were actually environmentalists, they would be welcome to write angry letters to Stephen Harper about his goal to sidestep the Kyoto protocol rather than brandishing axes and committing hate crimes. With 73-year-olds being beaten unconscious, it's obvious that this has gone beyond protecting the local fish population.

This is disgusting behaviour and they should be expected as a community to publicly apologize.

So, in order to protect the local fish populations this woman suggest the good people of Westport should be writing angry letters to Stephen Harper about his commitment to the Kyoto protocol. Yes it is true folks. The people of Toronto are stupid.

I wonder if this woman has ever heard the saying "think globally, act locally". How is stopping illegal fishing and poaching in your community not acting locally? If she is appalled by the tactics that were used then maybe this woman should save some of her typical Torontonian moral outrage and redirect it at Greenpeace and PETA; two organizations that are not shy to use violence and the destruction of property to make their points and achieve their goals.

But she is Torontonian. Her sense of self-righteous indignation is selective, not universally applied.

And they wonder why the rest of the country hates that city so much. It's not the city Canadians hate. It's the people who typically live there. And considering the above comment I say that hate is deserved.

If she expects the community of Westport to publicly apologize for the deeds of a few I wonder if she expects the Canadian South Asian community to apologize for the Air India bombing? Hell, I’d like to hear that. That community is only responsible for the deaths of over 200 people, the largest mass murder in Canadian history, and legal costs in excess of over $200 million billable to the Canadian tax payer. It's not like they pushed someone into the water or anything.

TORONTO - A Toronto mosque is telling Muslims not to say "Happy Thanksgiving" or invite friends into their homes for turkey dinner on the holiday weekend.

The Khalid Bin Al-Walid Mosque says to "avoid participating" in dinners, parties or greetings on Thanksgiving because it is a kuffaar, or non-Muslim, celebration.

A two-part article on the mosque Web site says Muslims should also "stay completely away" from "Halloween trick-and treat nonsense," Christmas, New Year's, anniversaries, birthdays and Earth Day.

"How can we bring ourselves to congratulate or wish people well for their disobedience to Allah? Thus expressions such as:Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Birthday, Happy New Year, etc, are completely out," it says.

In 2003, the Khalid mosque, which mainly serves the Toronto Somali-Canadian community, apologized for a newsletter that compared wishing someone a Merry Christmas to congratulating a murderer.

You give these people refuge and not only do they give Canadians a drug problem but the cold shoulder as well.

So, these Somalis are told to avoid Western Holidays by their mosque. Why don't they avoid immigrating to Western countries altogether? This kind of advice smacks of intolerance but unfortunately Somalis are not the only ones to express intolerance for Canadian culture. Why are they here? Why do we even let them in?

If Canada encouraged the immigration of a people who most easily adapted and integrated into Canadian society and culture these kinds of problems will be avoided. Our current immigration policy just compounds these problems and invites future tensions and cultural battles. Any takers on who will lose?

We thank the Star for raising the issue, and the Mayor of Georgina for speaking out and condemning these incidents.

Some reports on angler attacks have raised the question of poaching.

We should not confuse the issue: these incidents are about racism, not about enforcing fishing regulations.

Note - Oh really? This woman, who happens to be a commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission, has convinced herself it is about racism based on one-sided articles in the Star. Notice how she easily dismisses the possibility that these attacks may be a response to illegal behaviour by fishermen who are primarily of Asian decent. If she thinks Asians are incapable of such illegal actions then she should visit the Asia Pacific mall.

Also this smacks of prejudice. It scares me to think that these are the types of people who staff this nation's Human Rights Commissions.

If there are legitimate concerns, there are proper means to deal with them, like the Ministry of Natural Resources and the police.

Note - They did and nothing was being done about it. And if anything was done then the MNR would probably be accused of racism. I wouldn't be surprised if that is why the MNR didn't do anything in the first place. It was afraid of being labeled racist.

Many Ontarians have been hurt.

There is no excuse for vigilantism against particular ethnic communities.

It amounts to racial profiling because it assumes people are doing something illegal based on who they are.

Note - Go to the Asia Pacific mall lady. Go to Chinatown in Toronto. These kinds of illegal behaviour are pan-communal. Bootlegged movies are openly for sale in these places.

The accounts of racism are greatly disturbing and must be taken seriously at all levels of the community.

Asian Canadians should be able to enjoy fishing like everyone else, without fear of discrimination, harassment or violence.

What is the Star doing giving voice to people who are justifying racist attacks against Asian Canadian fishermen?

Your reporter quotes Charlie Jones, who denies that this is about racism, then writes about unsubstantiated claims by Westport residents that "many GTA anglers of Asian descent" have been caught poaching in a local fish sanctuary, pictured in a photo with the story.

Note - This writer is a woman with a very Asian name. First notice how she, too, automatically assumes it is racism and dismisses the illegal behaviour of the Asian fishermen.

What is more disconcerting is how she disagrees with the Star for allowing the people of Westport to have their say. How arrogant of her and how undemocratic of her! She doesn't seem to think that the people of Westport be allowed their Charter protected right to freedom of speech. I guess that right only applies to Asian fishermen illegally fishing and poaching Canadian waters.

Even the Ministry of Natural Resources official quoted in the story says there is no evidence of illegal commercial fishing.

Note - York regional police at first dismissed the attacks as racially motivated citing that other fishermen of non-Asian ancestry were pushed into the water as well. Did she believe that? Avvy Go and Susan Eng sure didn't and judging by this woman's comments she doesn't believe the York regional police as well. However, we are supposed to believe the MNR.

Yet your reporter writes as if to inflame the situation and justify local residents' attitudes and warnings of further violence by mentioning two incidents in the Westport area involving Asian Canadian fishermen.

Finally, we get to the last sentence of the story that tells readers "neither incident is believed to have happened on sanctuary waters..."

Shame on the Star for fanning the flames of an already tense situation.

"Fanning the flames"? Oh, she means against Asians. Not fuelling existing Asian racism against whites. Gotcha.

Here we have two Torontonians with near identical and predictable responses. They both readily assume racism is at the heart of the matter. Both readily dismiss any detail that would say otherwise. Both say nothing about the alleged illegal behaviour of the Asian fishermen. Both do not even consider that maybe the Asian fishermen invited the attacks. Both are from Toronto and are estranged from the communities where the incidents occurred. Both read the Toronto Star and therefore we can assume both are ignorant of the complete situation.

At least that's what we are told. Now Asian fishermen are attacked in Sutton ON, Westport ON, and now Georgina ON. Three separate and distant communities have reported incidents of attacks on anglers of Asian ancestry. There are two reasons that come to mind:

1. They are racially motivated attacks.

2. The Asian fishermen are inviting the attacks.

If you live in Toronto then 9 times out of 10 you go for the first reason regardless of any details that may reveal that the reason is really the second one. If you have any exposure to the Asian community then you may find yourself drifting to reason number two.

I find it interesting that Asian anglers have been attacked in three separate communities. Why is that? If it is really racially motivated then why is it only Asian anglers reporting attacks? Where are the reports of attacks against the Asian residents of those communities? Asians have migrated further north than Richmond Hill and are now found in Aurora ON and Newmarket ON. Where are the attacks against them?

Asian anglers are being targeted because they are misbehaving. They are doing something to stir the townsfolk ire against them. What the Toronto Star and the Asian community want to focus on are the consequences of the disrespectful behavior of the Asian community. By doing so they cast the townsfolk as villains and the Asian anglers as victims and misdirect the discussion to focus on alleged racism instead of the bad deeds, possibly illegal deeds, of the Asian anglers. Thus, the real crime goes unpunished and continues unabated and the real victim gets a jail sentence. It's as if a black man kept poking his finger into your side and kept saying "does that hurt" and then you knock him down after he refused to obey your repeated requests to stop. You go to jail and get labeled a racist and he walks away the victim, probably get a one-sided puff piece in the Toronto Star, even though he instigated the assault. And the Star is there to help.

The Star does not want to offend the Asian community in any way, even if they deserve the offense, because the Star wants to appear as a friend of the Asian community; a community that forms a considerable, and growing, portion of the Star's readers. In other words to offend the Asian community is bad for the Star's business. It's much safer for the Star to castigate white Canadians north of Toronto than it is to take the Asian community to task for its irreverent behavior in this country. When Canada's law enforcement agencies did nothing to address the concerns levied against the Asian anglers they left the people of these towns little recourse. I am not condoning their actions but I am just asking, “What did you expect?”

Mayor apologizes for assaults on Asian Canadian anglers, anti-Semitic and homophobic vandalism

The mayor of Georgina has denounced recent attacks on Asian Canadian fishermen, as well as anti-Semitic and homophobic vandalism, and has apologized on behalf of his community.

"The people that I have the privilege of representing are shamed and embarrassed that this would have happened in our community," Robert Grossi said yesterday after meeting with leaders of B'nai Brith Canada and the Chinese Canadian National Council.

Grossi's comments came after swastikas and anti-Semitic and homophobic slurs were painted on nine vehicles in Keswick, while York Region police investigate a series of attacks on Asian Canadian anglers at Lake Simcoe.

"From what we've heard so far, they're isolated incidents," said the mayor of the lakeshore community of 40,000 north of Toronto.

Note - The anti-Semitic and homophobic vandalism should be dealt with but there is more to the attacks on the Asian anglers. There is more to it than just racism.

Two related cases are before the courts, including one involving a high-speed chase that began when youths approached anglers fishing off a pier, and demanded to see their fishing licences.

The youths began shouting racial slurs and then chased the anglers as they fled, ramming their car from behind with a pickup truck.

Did these fishermen produce licenses? I say probably not. The behavior of the youths is unjustified and no tolerance should be made for it but neither should any tolerance be made for illegal fishing and poaching.

If mass immigration from Asia brings these kinds of racial tensions then why do we even encourage it? I say this laying much of the blame on the Asian community in Canada. They are part of the problem; I'd say a significant part of the problem. Asian immigrants account for a sizeable portion of immigrants to Canada. China is the top source country of immigrants to Canada. Do Canadians want more immigrants from Asia? Is it still Canada when half the population is Asian? Do you want to live in a town, a city, a country where you are the minority to an Asian majority? If yes then you can always move to China, Hong Kong, or Taiwan. Should Canada's immigration policy be so colour blind so as to allow a demographic shift in favor of Asians?

According to the poll, conducted last week by Ottawa-based SES research, only 18% of Canadians say cultural and religious minorities should be totally accommodated in Canada, with 53% saying immigrants should fully adapt to the Canadian way of life. The remaining respondents fell somewhere in between.

...

More than 90% of Quebecers are aware of the term, suggests the poll, and are overwhelmingly opposed to accommodating minority cultures and religions.

Only 5.4% of respondents said "reasonable accommodation" reflected their views and 77% said immigrants should adapt to Quebec and Canadian society.

...

While most Canadians favour some limits, roughly half say religious and cultural minorities should be accommodated "some of the time".

About 14% said they shouldn't be accommodated at all and 5.6% said they should be accommodated all the time.

The remainder, roughly 22%, said they should be accommodated "most of the time."

You know what this means don't you? It means Canada is a nation of racists concentrated mostly in Quebec! Looks like the multicultural propaganda machine isn't working up to specs. Guess we need some goose stepping brown shirts to coral Canadians into re-education camps for their daily dose of multicultural medicine. It's for the best you understand.

Still convinced multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multicultural countries can survive? Just bear in mind the racial makeup of the United States is greater than it is in Canada. Sorry to disappoint you folks in Toronto. It appears whites in the United States are poised to become a minority in their country a lot sooner than whites will in Canada. All that effort since the fist election of Trudeau and the Americans are going to beat us to the punch. As Carolyn Parrish once remarked about the good people of the United States: "Damn Americans...I hate those bastards".

But town residents say poaching has sparked anger, vicious attacks against Asian Canadians

Oct 04, 2007 04:30 AMDale BrazaoSTAFF REPORTER

Westport, Ont.–To hear the anglers tell it, they have been attacked, thrown off a bridge into the water, and threatened with baseball bats and axes by angry residents.

The unCanadian behaviour, these Asian Canadian anglers say, is just because of the way they look.

But residents of this idyllic hamlet on the shore of Big Rideau Lake, 45 minutes north of Kingston, tell a different story. Yes, there is palpable anger in town toward the "Asian" anglers, but it has nothing to do with race.

...

"This has nothing to do with racism, and everything to do with protecting the fish," says Charlie Jones, a member of a fish conservation group. "These people have been caught time and time again over the last five years either over-fishing or taking fish from the sanctuary."

Jones, who also manages the local grocery store, blames the Natural Resources ministry's lax enforcement of fishing regulations for the problem.

...

Residents with lakeside properties have also complained of finding garbage, including human feces and toilet paper, on their lawns or behind their garages.

Note - Ewwwww. Gross. Now that's what I call unCanadian.

"That's all over the place and that is absolutely not right," said Peter Clipsham, a broker with Coldwater Banker in town, who is convinced much of the illicit fishing is being carried out for profit.

Rumours of aerated tank trucks trolling the countryside have added fuel to the speculation that many of these fishing trips are supplying Toronto's Chinatown restaurants.

Crappies and rock bass, considered substandard species by many sport fishermen, are a delicacy in the Asian community. And in July and August crappies are apparently voracious eaters at night.

There is no evidence of illegal commercial fishing, said Steve Aubry, the MNR's supervisor of enforcement for the area. He said his officers are aware and are monitoring the situation in Westport.

Congratulations Toronto Star and the inept reporters you employ. You have yet again stirred up anti-white sentiments among a minority group within Canada. Not only that but you have also fed the bigoted minds of Torontonians who already harbour prejudiced imaginations of a white, racist, back water populace north of Steeles. I don't know why this story is buried on A23. Who made that decision and why since two one-sided articles describing the attacks on the Asian fishermen got the front page, headline treatment. What are you, the Toronto Star editors, trying to accomplish with this nonsense? Why weren't these facts sought out before you published the stories? Why weren't they included when accusations of racism were being thrown about? Oh, that's right! It was you, the Toronto Star, making the accusations of racism by publishing, and seemingly favouring, one sided stories. Do you even know what balanced reporting even is?

But as I wrote already, “I told you so”. When Asian fishermen are the targets of alleged racially motivated attacks in towns as far apart as Sutton ON, and Westport ON, you have to wonder if the Asian fishermen are inviting these attacks. It’s not like the good people of Sutton and Westport conspired and decided to target Asian fishermen. Citing lax enforcement of Canada’s conservation laws the townsfolk, in Westport at least, took the law into their own hands. If the Ministry of Natural Resources wasn’t doing anything about offences to Canada’s conservation laws committed by these Asian fishermen then who will and when?

If poaching is what is going on in Westport are we going to be so naïve and assume that poaching is not happening in Sutton as well? Why wouldn’t it be? After all, Sutton is closer to the Asian restaurant market in Toronto and the GTA than Westport is. And if poaching is what is occurring in Sutton, ON and Westport, ON can we assume it is happening all across Canada with significant Asian populations? It seems breaking this nation’s conservation laws, to say nothing of its copyright laws, is an Asian Canadian problem that should be addressed by enforcement of our laws and the laying of heavy fines against the poacher and the buyer.

More to the point, and the purpose of this blog, is this: what does this say about the Asian Canadian community and their reverence to their adopted homeland if they choose to behave this way, by breaking our conservation laws, and being a general irritation. This isn’t just a few Asians mind you. It crosses their whole community. Their culture, Asian culture, compels them to do so. I don’t have to remind you of the many illegal mining operations that pop up in China with impressive frequency and killing 20,000 miners a year with no punishment from Beijing. I am not going to make a moral judgment on them. If that’s how they do things in China or Hong Kong then so be it. But you’re in Canada now. Respect our laws, our culture, our people, or get the hell out of the country. And many do actually but with Canadian passport in tow. That’s why there are an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 "Canadians" in Hong Kong alone. How's that for loyalty?

Are these people Canadians? Should they be? Why do we give away our citizenship so easily to such a people who, judging by their actions alone, do not deserve it? China is Canada’s top source of immigrants to this nation soon to be surpassed by India. Should we be importing so many Chinese immigrants? I do not think we should. They have proven, by their actions alone, that they do not care about Canada. They only care about the fortunes they can make here irrespective of our laws and the concerns of Canadians, hence the poaching. They enclave wherever they go and thus maintain the unCanadian aspects of their culture within Canada preventing them from truly integrating into Canadian society. But if they wanted to truly integrate then they wouldn’t enclave now would they?

That's why we need to set limits on immigrant numbers from any country so as to combat enclaving. If these Asian fishermen were truly integrated Canadians, instead of Canadian passport holding Asians, then there wouldn't have been any problems in Sutton or Westport. We need to set limits. We need reform.

Wednesday, 3 October 2007

Then, with cell phone ready approach any fisherman you suspect is a problem and then ask to see their fishing license. If you suspect that they are fishing commercially ask to see their commercial fisherman's license. If they fail to produce either of these then call the Ministry of Natural Resources. Here are some contact numbers:

Or call the local police. These fishermen are fishing illegally. Stay there until the police arrive or until the fishermen leave the spot. If you are so inclined then follow them to make sure they do not set up somewhere and continue their illegal behaviour.

Rinse and repeat.

You want the law on your side. You don’t want to give Susan Eng and Avvy Go an excuse to sick the law on you like a rabid pit bull meanwhile those they seek to protect act illegally themselves. If my suspicions are correct then many of these problem fishermen are fishing without a license and if they have a license then they are fishing commercially with a recreational license. Resorting to "nippertipping" is illegal but so is fishing without a license. Make sure Canada’s recreational and commercial fishing laws are enforced in your area. Once your town establishes the reputation that it does not tolerate illegal fishing practices I’m certain the problems will diminish. And there will be nothing Susan Eng or Avvy Go can do about it.